Socrata Thrace And Her Special Destiny
by greysw
Summary: They knew Socrata down at the hospital. A remix of frolicndetour's Watercolors, written for the 2010 Remix/Redux.


Socrata Thrace jogged down Red Rose Avenue, her breath steaming in the morning air. She passed the store on the corner, and then old Kostas's house: 7:15, right on time. The trees along the avenue were still dripping, and a puddle had gathered beneath them, but she didn't turn to avoid it. As she passed, more mud sloshed up onto her boots and the cuffs of her sweats. She didn't care.

Mud makes you stronger.

By 7:19 she was a stone's throw short of the brownstone which was halfway to her apartment; she punished herself for it by running double-time through the next few puddles.

"Hey Colonial Navy," she muttered. "Get in your ships and follow me. I am Marine Corps infantry..."

At 7:23 she was jogging up the steps, on time as always. She wiped her boots on the mat, stomping one and then the other. Then she unlocked the door, stepped inside, and locked it behind her, rattling the deadbolt to make sure it slid home.

"Kara?" she called. "You'd better not be in this house!"

No answer. Socrata went into the kitchen, sat down at the table, and lit a cigarette. There was another of Kara's crazy paintings drying on the windowsill, concentric rings of purple and green with odd, wavering edges. The paintings were always the same; only the colors changed, shifting in ways that made Socrata feel uneasy. Always the same. A symptom of a stagnant mind.

Socrata looked away, glancing out onto the damp streets. She finished her cigarette, and went upstairs to check Kara's room. The bed was made, the floor was clean, and the desk was spotless, so maybe the kid was finally learning. She turned around, went into the bedroom, and shrugged out of her dirty sweats. She pulled on a pair of pants and a rough wool sweater in their place.

She went back downstairs again. She pulled a cold piece of corned beef out of the fridge, folded it between a slice of dry bread, and ate in stoic silence. When she was finished, she smoked another cigarette, glancing up at the clock above the Medal of Valor on the wall.

Then she left the house.

She walked up the street to the VCW, as heedless of the puddles as she'd been before. This early nobody was there except Bob the bartender, who was setting up for pancake breakfast. Socrata sat down at the bar anyway, beneath the worn Colonial flag, and watched as he plugged in the old electric griddle.

She liked the VCW. It was small inside, all dark wood paneling and old concrete, and the drinks were cheap. It felt safe, like a bunker or a foxhole, and best of all, Bob and the others kept it ship-shape. There were never any bugs.

Socrata liked it best when no one else was there. The younger officers didn't understand; none of them had ever seen a Cylon, much less fought one. They were helpless and soft. Everything they knew about soldiering came from the movies. And the older ones, the ones like her, usually liked to talk about the war.

She didn't come to talk. She came to drink. Talking was for people who couldn't cut the frakkin' mustard. Suffering was good for the soul, after all. It meant something.

Everything meant something.

Bob finally finished setting up for breakfast. The griddle sizzled and smoked as it heated; it'd be another ten minutes before Bob could put the pancakes on. She watched as he limped his way back behind the bar. Bob never talked, and that proved her point; he just poured one shot of bourbon for her and one for him, and tossed the latter back.

She drank hers a little more slowly - a _little_ - and let her eyes wander over the row of photos on the wall. Some were reproductions: the famous picture of Admiral Tanaka at the Armistice, a monochrome rendering of a Battlestar in space, and a yellowed print of Monclair's _Tauron Burning_. Others were more personal, photos left by the bar's patrons over the years. She hadn't put any up, but she was in a couple of them just the same, standing in the jungle with her squad. In one of them, she had her rifle in her off hand, looking straight into the camera; in another, she was sitting on a rotting log eating a ration bar, with her helmet down over her ears.

She let her eyes skip over those.

Just then, a trio of young Navy officers walked in. "You wouldn't believe what she said next!" one of them laughed.

"Two-fifty, same as in town?" the biggest one asked. They all roared.

"Why is it always the _same_ frakking joke with you?"

Socrata stood up, shoved a couple of cubits across the bar, and walked out. "Motherfrakkin' squids," she snarled, loud enough for them to hear. She knew they heard it, because they went quiet all of a sudden. They didn't do or say anything, though. They didn't have the guts.

Socrata stopped off at the corner store to buy another pack of smokes, and then circled back to the apartment. When she opened the door, the message light was blinking on the phone. It was the hospital. Her daughter, they said.

They knew Socrata down at the hospital. Kara was in and out of there all the time: when she wasn't climbing trees or getting into scuffles, she was disobeying or mouthing off, and that had to be punished.

As far as the hospital knew, Kara was a clumsy child.

The doctor who met Socrata was one she'd seen once before, for a concussion or some such. She smiled warmly enough, but Socrata didn't trust her.

"You can come in and see her," the doctor said. "She got into a hell of a fight, but she should wake up soon."

Socrata followed her in. Kara was lying in the bed; both her eyes had been blackened, and there was a pulse monitor on one of her tiny fingers.

_One little fight_, Socrata thought angrily._ Frak, she can't even handle __**that**_.

It was _his_ fault, of course, just like the watercolors were; Kara was thin and willowy, like him, not strong the way a Sergeant Major's daughter should be. Socrata looked away, her mouth narrowing, half-listening as the doctor continued to speak.

"She has a minor concussion, but we don't think it's serious. The bruised ribs may be more of a problem - looks like one or more of them might be fractured. We'll need to order some X-rays."

"All right," Socrata said. "Whatever's best. I don't know how she gets herself into these scrapes."

"Well, next time your daughter feels like practicing her martial arts, tell her to pick on someone her own size. And to stay away from the 14-year-old boys. And _especially_ not to try and take on four or five of them at once."

"Four or five?" Socrata asked. Her eyes widened - now_ that_ was more like it. When she turned to look at Kara, her daughter was peering back up at her, from beneath blond bangs just like hers. Socrata smiled, and went to sit beside Kara's bed.

"That's what your neighbor said when she brought her in," the doctor said. "She's lucky she wasn't more severely hurt. Kids don't pull their punches."

Socrata looked down at her daughter, measuring her. Maybe she wasn't so weak, after all. "You're right about that," she muttered, running her fingers through Kara's hair. "They don't."

The doctor grinned ruefully. "The older boy found that out; he'll need three stitches in his upper lip, thanks to your daughter."

Pride stole her voice, and for a long moment, Socrata said nothing. Then she nodded.

"Well, she might not be the smartest kid on the block, but she's not lacking guts. When can I bring her home?"

"Tomorrow. We still need to run those X-rays, and Dr. Michelson likes to keep concussion patients overnight, just in case. You can pick her up tomorrow morning, if you like..."

"How early are you open?"

By the time Socrata finished signing the paperwork, it was raining again. It was a long walk back to the apartment from the hospital - she'd taken a cab over there, but she was damned if she was going to pay another twenty credits just to get back - and she was well-soaked by the time she passed the corner store. She had a lot of time to think about things, as the rain pattered down around her: things like pain, and her daughter, and destiny. Kara was meant for something. She was sure of it; now more than ever.

It was a good thing she'd worn wool.

She shook herself off and stepped inside the store, just for a minute. She'd smoked a whole pack at the hospital and on the way back, and she hated to go without. _Another_ expense.

Socrata picked up a pack of Sarcomas and then walked up and down the aisles, glancing at the rows of chip packets and dusty candies. The corner store was a good one: small, cheap, and never busy, run by a couple of immigrants from Aerilon. Socrata bought most things there, rather than take the bus over to the fancy store two neighborhoods over. She and Kara didn't need much, anyway.

At the end of the aisle was a cooler. Socrata grabbed a bottle of milk for tomorrow's breakfast, turned around, and stopped.

Across from the candy was a little display of toys: a balsa-wood airplane, a set of jacks, and a bag of plastic army men complete with Cylons. And watercolors. She hadn't bought any for Kara in a long time. They were a frivolity, a distraction from school and duty; they encouraged Kara's insubordinate, defiant stunts.

Socrata bought them just the same. The kid had earned them.

When she got back to the apartment, the rain was finally beginning to let up. She left the watercolors on the table, next to the ashtray, and she put the milk away. Then she turned, took Kara's painting down from the windowsill, and went upstairs.

Socrata pushed her footlocker in front of the closet and stepped up onto it. She had to stretch up onto the toes of her boots to reach the top shelf, where her scrapbook was; she always pushed it to the back, into the dark, where nobody would ever find it.

She sat down on the locker with a grunt, flipping through the pages. The first few were the oldest: Kara's birth certificate, a few faded photos, and the words of the Oracle at her naming ceremony. Socrata had underlined _destined to serve the Gods_ in red pen. After that came report cards, school photos, and a hundred identical eye-things, in every color imaginable. The first ones were crayon, then colored pencil, and then watercolors, just like the one Kara had painted yesterday.

Socrata looked down at it. It was purple and green, in five round layers like a target or a snail's shell. Or a beetle's wings. Kara had signed it, with just her first name, in the lower right-hand corner. Socrata didn't know why; it was the same thing she always painted, the only thing. Why sign it?

Socrata tucked the painting into its place at the end of the scrapbook, closed the cover, and hid it away again. Then she pulled her footlocker back beside the bed, and went downstairs.

The clock on the wall, above the Medal of Valor, ticked loudly.


End file.
